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You're using on-block traits and altruism runes with Signet of Resolve instead of the low-cooldown Shelter. In general, a boon duration set provides more benefit to the group, especially with Empowering Might.

good point, although the difference in cooldown isn't that great, and I should probably be using tome of courage as the elite too.

Originally Posted by Malawi Frontier Guard

Also, you should forget about AH and put the 10 points into Honor for Pure of Voice. If you want to play support you might as well take care of conditions for the party. Of course torch has a cleanse, but try aiming that at allies in combat.

I kinda have to ask: why Judge's intervention? From a PvE perspective, you have a stun break in stand your ground. Purging Flame would be a better burn skills it removes conditions and is a combo field.

Hold the line would also be a good skill if you want to go for a triple shout build.

But otherwise I think it is rather solid support build.

Also if anyone is curious this is basically what I am running on Jar, or will be once I finish sorting out the jewelry.

I kinda have to ask: why Judge's intervention? From a PvE perspective, you have a stun break in stand your ground. Purging Flame would be a better burn skills it removes conditions and is a combo field.

Hold the line would also be a good skill if you want to go for a triple shout build.

But otherwise I think it is rather solid support build.

Also if anyone is curious this is basically what I am running on Jar, or will be once I finish sorting out the jewelry.

you end up swapping your skills for the situation anyway, I'll probably run "Retreat" permanently and then another shout and other skill which is likely to be wall of reflection quite a lot because it's so useful.

also without AH the runes of altruism may well become monk/water/divinity combinations.

we'll see, I'm only half way to getting the complete armour set and nowhere near getting the weapons.

so I've been doing a little bit of testing based on the forum post that Saph linked to.

so I wandered up to Frostgorge Sound to beat up on the local wildlife and discovered a couple of things that I should share with you.
1. Shattered Aegis is better than Fiery Wrath (at least for me) against lvl 80 Arcodos I was getting 3sec with 363 fire damage/sec; that compares favourably with the 10% extra damage from fiery wrath since I would lose 2secs of uptime. I would think this is the same for direct damage builds since if you are not speced for burning duration then you are unlikely to hit them while they are on fire.

2. Sigil of Fire doesn't provide condition damage; that surprised me since it does a flame blast but it is all direct damage.

Healing power is a bad stat that is a complete waste unless you completely invest in it for certain classes(guardian, elementalist, engineer), and even then it's only relevant for certain WvW situations.

Although I agree that Healing Power is a stat that not every class can easily benefit from (especially not in PvE), it is far from bad. Competitve PvP Guardians cannot go without it (every single bunker runs Clerics amulet, maybe with a different jewel), and until Settler's gear came out, all the Ranger bunkers in PvE ran it as major stat.

Against a heavy condition build it most likely won't survive on it's own, but then who does. I am not that much into organited PvP, but I would assume that other team members would come to help out if pressure got too high.

Okay - apologies if I drag the IQ of this thread down for a brief second but I promise I'll do my best to drag it back up again as I learn more. I've basically just run through the levelling process from 1-80 on my guardian. My knowledge of how to play and what abilities to use has therefore been mostly defined by what worked well for that type of play. ie: running around, mostly by myself killing a few mobs at a time in the open world.

I'm about to begin embarking on joining some dungeon runs and some guild events and need to get up to speed on things at a deeper level to understand what is good and why and what I should be doing in dungeons or elsewhere etc.

I've read through this thread but I'd say it pitches more towards those that already have a decent grasp of what's what. I wonder therefore if there are some good resources that could be recommended that I could go look up to fill in some of the blanks. Are there any 'definitive' reference resources that I should be reading for example?

There are 2 schools of thought in dungeons. One is that in GW2 you need to max DPS in order to kill enemies fast, and should run a close to perfect build in a ideal party with at least some guardians and warriors stacking lots of might and fury. The other says bobbins to all that, as long as you're having fun and not dying repeatedly do what you feel comfortable with.
Good guardians are essential in high level fractals and some dungeons, particularly for reflects, good survivability and the odd heal, combined with good damage.
I would say go as berserker as you are comfortable with, get some tankier soldier armour from Karma temple vendors in Orr to swap out when going gets tough, and play with a few options first. Be flexible depending on who you are running with.
Spend laurels and wvw tokens (you should have some from achievement chests) on your first few exotic / ascended items, I'd suggest berserker here
Some thoughts on builds and dungeon ethos here, courtesy of a link squirrel posted last week:http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/...s-composition/

Due to the nature of dungeons and how damage is dealt to you, as long as you're running a stunbreak and a little condition removal you can survive basically anything through dodging. Condition removal is something you may not need as much due to party composition (guardians and mesmers can pretty much make sure all conditions are instantly stripped) but a stunbreak or 2 goes a long way.

Beyond that with the idea that dodging damage is far more effective than mitigating it through stats, that's why people say to take berzerkers.

On top of this you want some nice skills and combo effects that can plop down as much might, fury and vulnerability as possible.

But as RPS isn't a super serious guild, we're usually happy to run with people doing what they want and as long as they can keep themselves alive then it's usually all good :3